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July 1

Maghrebi music in a Pirelli commercial

Can you help me find a Pirelli TV commercial which features some modern music (English-language hip-hop?) with a Maghrebi music sampled base? The Maghrebi base has a group of 8 notes and 3 repetitions of the same note. It is probably a string instrument. The commercial does not have many (or even any) words. I don't remember the imagery. I think I have watched it this year or in 2025 but Pirelli may have used it years ago. I am not interested in the actual commercial but in the modern music and the original Maghrebi music, if you can find it? Do you know what I'm talking about? -- Error (talk) 19:36, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Nevermind. Michelin Motion for Life, featuring Chemical Brothers' Galvanize (song):

The track features a distinct Moroccan Chaabi music string sample from Najat Aatabou's 1992 song "Hadi Kedba Bayna" ("This Lie is Obvious" in Moroccan Arabic).

The advertisers for Michelin have good taste for music but failed to impress the brand on me 🤷.

--Error (talk) 19:59, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

July 2

Christmas theatre, Orson Welles style

I've been reading David Thomson's Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles, where I read that the Mercury Theatre presented their new production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, with Welles as Brutus, to a sold-out audience in New York on Christmas Day 1937. At the end, he offered them a special unannounced preview of their upcoming production of The Shoemaker's Holiday, which would require half an hour to set the stage up and get the actors into new costumes and makeup etc. Most of the audience stayed.

Welles at this stage was far from a well-known name. It wasn't till October 1938 that he acquired instant national fame with his radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. Before then, it was pretty much "Orson who?".

I cannot imagine any theatre company in 2026 having the gall to present anything, let alone Shakespeare, let alone a new production, on Christmas Day!. Surely the audience would be extremely sparse because of the competing demands of the yuletide season. Has Christmas really changed that much over the last 90 years? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:22, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

I worked in the movie theater industry from 1983 to 1998. Christmas was ALWAYS the biggest ticket seller with nearly every movie selling out. People would just ask for a ticket to any movie that wasn't sold out. Thanksgiving day was #2 right behind Christmas. My personal joke about it was that there comes a point in the holiday celebration where everyone says it is time to celebrate by being together for a couple hours in a place where nobody has to pay any attention to one another. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 16:49, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. That kinda makes sense for movies. Theatre, though? Tastes and practices change; I'm still to be convinced a theatre company would present anything on Christmas Day these days. I'm sure there's the odd exception, but it's clearly gone from a common practice in the 1930s to a rarity these days. I'm interested in how and why and when the change occurred. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:22, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

According to this, it wasn't the premiere, as that had happened on 11 November. But the other details match; and by the time they were ready to present The Shoemaker's Holiday it was 1:15 am on Boxing Day. What magic could hold an audience glued to their seats at such a time on such a day? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:13, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

There was a bit of recovery by then, but 1937 is still pretty solidly in the Great Depression in the United States. If money's tight, your yuletide schedule can free up considerably and getting extra entertainment for your admission may have been quite attractive. Matt Deres (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

But nobody in the audience knew they were getting a bonus until Welles announced it after Julius Caesar. That can't have been the drawcard. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:06, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Also, Christmas isn't a really major thing for everybody. Especially in a large cosmopolitan city like New York, there were likely plenty of non-Christmas-observing Christians (Jehovah's Witnesses and Quakers, for example), other religionists (especially Jews), and agnostics/atheists, open to theatre-going on the 25th of December. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-36805-68 (talk) 20:29, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

July 3

Anybody recognize this music?

Does anyone recognize the catchy music that plays with this quirky little video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S35JaaVjSI

I've been wondering about it for a while. I assumed it was just some stock music, and perhaps it is, but recently I was surprised to hear a different (more Muzak-y) arrangement of the same tune behind a cheesy corporate training video I had to sit through. —scs (talk) 22:26, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

it has the same chord progression Great Big Rolling Railroad, a song used in many forms by Union Pacific. ~2026-35761-94 (talk) 22:39, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Written by Bill Fries, and which you can read about and hear here. DuncanHill (talk) 21:52, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

I would never have recognized it, and I'm still not sure I can hear the resemblance, but it makes sense, so thanks for the info! —scs (talk) 23:20, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

July 4

synthesized song vocals?

[1] Can anyone tell if the vocals in this song are synthesized/AI? The instrumentals certainly are, though the arrangement probably had some human involvement. I listened through a crappy laptop speaker but it might be easier to tell with better equipment. If the voices are human, it's weird that there's no credit for the vocalists. Thanks. ~2026-38271-65 (talk) 21:45, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

There are several videos on YouTube of Dimash performing the song: [2], [3], [4]. If any of the sound in the video you linked to was synthesized, my guess is that all of it was.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:08, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

The video Anony linked is a remix of the song Dimash performed. It's very plausible that Dimash's song is entirely human and then someone asked an LLM to wholesale zim a darkwave remix. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 19:18, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks all. Yes I've heard lots of human versions of this song including Dimash's. It's from the 1978 rock opera Starmania and until Dimash, Daniel Balavoine's performances were probably the best known. I'd never heard the word "zim" used like that but I think I know what you mean. I didn't know it was technologically possible to do that though, i.e. drop in an existing performance and get it back completely rearranged.

July 5

The Animals Went in Two By Two

Here is another one with a memorized song fragment in his head. I clearly remember the line "and they all went into the ark for to get out of the rain" which, as I now found out, is from the Nursery Rhyme "The Animals Went in Two by Two" which is based on the tune of When Johnny Comes Marching Home. But I am pretty sure that I came across this line not in an arrangement as a children's song. It may have been in the 1980s or 1990s when I heard it. There is the song "Noah's Dream" by the German Power Metal Band Heavens Gate that includes a Metal version of "The Animals..." and it is from the 1990s but I am a bit skeptical if this really is the origin of my memory. Has anybody an idea of another singer/band who may have "quoted" the song? Maybe more towards mainstream pop? I asked my question also at de:Wikipedia:Auskunft#The Animals Went in Two by Two but so far no one has come up with a helpful answer yet. --Proofreader (talk) 18:29, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

A long shot, but was it perhaps a cover of The Unicorn by Shel Silverstein? It's been covered many times. Matt Deres (talk) 12:48, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

That song contains the lines "Old Noah was there to answer the call / He finished up making the Ark just as the rain started falling / He marched in the animals two by two / And he called out as they went through..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:49, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it's a nice song. But what I was looking for is actually a version of "The Animals..." with the original text, just not in an arrangement as a children's song. --Proofreader (talk) 12:06, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again (hurrah, hurrah)" DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 03:14, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

July 7

Forward

Are football's all time best players always played in forward position?

Means best player will be forward and others will be in middle and defender? ~2026-38570-61 (talk) 05:50, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Read List of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees and decide for yourself. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:08, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I should have mentioned soccer. Actually we say football for game played by Pele, Maradona, Ferenc Puskas, BeckenBauer ~2026-38570-61 (talk) 08:06, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Not in Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 03:40, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Is there a soccer hall of fame? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:04, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

There used to be - the International Football Hall of Champions - but it closed in 2001. ~2026-36908-42 (talk) 12:45, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

It's an artefact of how "best" is measured. It's very easy to count a player's goals and assists, and naturally forwards will have the best such statistics. It's much more difficult to measure a player's effectiveness in link play or defending, since the former is difficult to put numbers on and the latter is mostly about making things not happen. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.15} ~2026-36805-68 (talk) 08:06, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Johan Cruyff, generally considered the greatest Dutch footballer ever, played both as a centre forward and as a midfielder. But even when nominally positioned as a centre forward, he constantly shifted position (as did other players on the team) in response to the dynamics of the game, something Cruyff called "controlled chaos".  ​‑‑Lambiam 15:24, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

You mention Franz Beckenbauer, who was a central defender. Michel Platini, who was Diego Maradona's main rival for the title of best player of the 1980s, was a midfielder, and Maradona often played there as well. The Ballon d'Or winner is usually a forward, but there have been a number of exceptions. Xuxl (talk) 15:32, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I can't help but think of Liverpool that used "Moneyball" type statistical analysis to identify the 'best' player as a measure of value. It famously worked. They signed players who may not be the best when looking solely at goals and assists, but turned out to be valuable. The problem is that as their methods spread, players that score high in those analysis suddenly cost more, losing value. It is a famous example statistical analysis success as well as a famous example of the target (scoring high in the analysis) becoming the target and failing to remain a meaningful measure (Goodhart's law). ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 16:23, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure the Moneyball situation is an example of Goodhart's Law. I do not know the situation with football, but in baseball, the things that Moneyball Sabermetrics stressed (walks and on base percentage chief among them) remain as valuable things. I think of Goodhart's Law as being like, "We used margin per piece as our KPI and then pushed that to exclusion of all else, pricing ourselves out of the market"; the baseball equivalent is more like "We used OBP as our KPI and now everyone else does too, so we no longer have an advantage during trades/drafts." There is something of a feeling that "the measures have become the target", as seen in commentary during the Toronto Blue Jays World Series run (which emphasized contact at almost all costs), but now that they've reverted to the mean, people conveniently no longer bring it up. Matt Deres (talk) 20:12, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Goodhart's law doesn't claim that statistics will lose meaning. It claims that the metric will lose meaning. For Liverpool, they used statistics to identify players who were "valuable." They could get a lot of the "hidden talent" without high cost. It worked. Then, everyone started doing it. Those measures of talent were still valuable, but the metric of talent-per-dollar became less meaningful because the demand for those players increased. To repeat the process, new statistical measures that others weren't using would be required to find whatever the new "hidden talent" might be.

This is normal across fields. I work in finance. Branch managers get bonuses based on metrics. They know the metrics. they game the metrics. They get their bonus. The metric that used to be a good measure of branch performance loses value because everyone is focused on those statistical measures, not on actual performance. Goodhart's law is better phrased as: When everyone is focused on meeting a metric, the metric loses value as a measurement of what it is supposed to measure. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 11:58, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Music release date

I am currently trying to find a source for the release date for the single "Mouse" by mary in the junkyard. I know that it was released on 9 June 2026, however, no website actually lists the release date, they are just all published on that day. I have used Dork's track listings as a source for the other singles, like this, but it isn't listed there. Is it possible to cite Spotify for the release date, or is there some other, better way to do it? Thanks Freddieh9 (talk) 16:28, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

It is the same date as Bandcamp, FEMMUSIC Magazine, and Album of the Year. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 17:18, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

It's not on our list of deprecated sources, though I don't know if it's ever been tested. Is the data in Spotify user-generated? It's not clear to me what their sources are. Matt Deres (talk) 20:22, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure either, so I've just gone with what's available on Bandcamp. Freddieh9 (talk) 20:39, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

July 9

Help identifying a classical piece on Commons

Does anyone have any pointers re identifying the piece in the sound file File:Variations (played with Yamaha Grand CFIIIS).ogg? (See its deletion request). It's a theme with seven or so variations (perhaps I lost count) in D minor for solo piano. It's almost certainly not by any of the really big names in this sort of music otherwise I would have found it by now. Even knowing what the theme is (if it's not original to the composer) would be helpful; most of it sounds Italianate or operatic to me, but in contrast bits of it even remind me of "Chim Chim Cher-ee". I've looked at a few lists of compositions for Romantic composers on Wikipedia (e.g. Tchaikovsky, Franck, Clara Schumann), but no dice. I asked this in the entertainment desk because it's about music, despite this desk's usual focus on popular culture. Thanks for any help. Graham87 (talk) 17:42, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

From their contributions, from 5 June 2006 to 31 July 2011, it appears that the uploader has some connection to Yamaha pianos. Is it inconceivable that they themself were the performer?  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:59, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah I did notice that too. Not completely impossible, but the quality of the performance (and the recording) make me wonder exactly what's going on here. At the least it'd be a high-level university concert or something. Musically, it uses the low D on the piano, indicating that the composition most likely post-dates Beethoven (but the chromaticism points to that as well). The year in the metadata of 2003 is also interesting. Graham87 (talk) 00:12, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

The performance may have been professionally recorded by Yamaha, possibly in connection with their efforts to make their AvantGrand sound just like a Yamaha Grand CFIIIS.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:55, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah could've been. The best suggestion that an AI with websearch I tried came up with was some kind of connection with the 2003 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, which apparently used that sort of piano (but that might have been a hallucination as [the given link doesn't confirm it), which is also an interesting idea. There's nothing like that on this CD set, but that doesn't completely rule anything out as it's a set of highlights. There's also the small matter of when the composition was published; if it's after 1930 (which isn't impossible), the file wouldn't be in the public domain in the US and would therefore be ineligible for Commons. Unless perhaps the artist is the composer. Graham87 (talk) 12:17, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Also this set of variations by Raimund Schächer (born 1960) on "Tumbalalaika" has a similar feel, but isn't as virtuosic as the file above. Graham87 (talk) 13:31, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't scream any of the usual suspects to me, or even any of the more obscure suspects I know. If you search IMSLP @ Category:D minor, and scroll across to V, you'll find dozens of pieces called "Variations on ...". Or maybe it's not called Variations, and is buried among the 5,800 other pieces in D minor listed there. Or maybe it's not at IMSLP at all, but I know how much sleuths love wild goose chases. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:10, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

If I were a considerably better pianist, it's the sort of thing I would try to make up myself. The theme itself is far too elaborate as a starting point, anyway. None of the rest is in the slightest bit exciting, you come away with a feeling of "thank goodness that's over." It's not a genuine show-off piece, and it abounds with technical limitations. None of it is particularly difficult for a competent pianist, but there is no soul. It is an entirely barren display of vague virtuosity. I would love to be proven wrong: "Actually, fool, its an early piece by XXXX." MinorProphet (talk) 00:36, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah it'd be beyond me personally as I'm at an "eke-out-a-Bach-French-Suite level", but it doesn't sound anywhere near as difficult as, say, a Chopin étude, to provide an almost-insulting comparison point. I didn't realise that IMSLP's categories were so readily searchable, though. Graham87 (talk) 07:33, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

It is a wiki, and they use similar software. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:27, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Yep, with some cool add-ons. Per the comments above, I'm leaning towards the theory it might be by a composition student or something (or even the performer themselves), because I haven't been able to find it on IMSLP even with their category search feature ... which I just remembered we have here using the incategory keyword. I'm glad it's not just me who thought it was boring; I thought it was just that I gravitate more (but by no means exclusively) to the classical/baroque eras. Graham87 (talk) 11:40, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Why did you nominate it for deletion? What harm is it doing you? --Viennese Waltz 12:40, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

It's copyright status is unknowable because of the lack of information about the file. Also, I didn't believe the author's assertion of ownership of the file, even after checking the user's other edits. After this discussion, I'd be willing to believe that the uploader composed and performed it, but we don't know either of those things for certain. One thing I would still be dubious about is whether the uploader has copyright permission to upload it in the first place. It might not be the best composition in the world, but the recording seems to be of fairly high quality to me (especially considering pianos are hard to record ... but I'm not an expert), and I strongly suspect it was the work of either a recording company or a radio station, who would most likely own its copyright. Maybe the uploader does indeed work for Yamaha who gave him copyright to the recording, but if that's the case, proper evidence of that would be needed. Graham87 (talk) 14:25, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I came across the file because I'll soon be checking out a Yamaha C7X piano recently installed near where I live, thanks to one of my support workers pulling a few strings (pun). Since we have the article Steinway D-274, I wondered whether we had any articles on Yamaha pianos (more out of curiosity than anything). We don't but during my searching I found the List of Yamaha Corporation products article, which contains that sound file. Graham87 (talk) 15:07, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

The metadata in the Ogg file says it's from the album "EL JOC 2003 Vol. 2". With the Yamaha connection, that strongly suggests it's from Yamaha's Junior Original Concert series, and the programme for the 2003 concert includes "変奏曲" (Hensōkyoku, i.e. Variations) composed and performed on solo piano by 13-year-old Kazuya Saito. Adam Sampson (talk) 17:47, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Considering the blandness of the piece, next to just "Variations" being a somewhat unusual name for a single musical composition (pace Stravinsky), I deem this identification to be more than merely plausible.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:20, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks very much @Adam Sampson:! As if we needed further corroboration, there's this. Now unfortunately whether he had permission to license the file and post it like that is another thing entirely ... Graham87 (talk) 08:15, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Just for fun: Something I wrote 20 years ago, and happily unearthed a CD of it this afternoon: Theme & variations on a tune not by Handel. I made the whole thing up to confuse my (now) late dad, who could never tell if I was being serious or not. MinorProphet (talk) 20:41, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Hmm, "An entirely barren display of vague virtuosity." I rest my own case. MinorProphet (talk) 21:56, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

A worthy(???) candidate for List of variations on a theme NOT by another composer. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:02, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe I should have a go at "Variations on an imagined theme of late Scriabin" by the pretend Nikos Skalkottas, or even by the fake Kaikhosru Sorabji. Would need to really let go, though, and imagine someone who could even begin to physically play it. Or start engraving my own pieces for multiple instruments like "Variations on a few Studies for Player Piano by Conlon Nancarrow". Or even "Variations on a theme from Ballet Mécanique by Georges Antheil, with special homage to Hedy Lamarr". Stunning stuff... I've been practising at home, but maybe the world isn't ready yet. Unless they've been listening to Sun Ra or Cecil Taylor, particular heroes of mine...MinorProphet (talk) 23:36, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Lol. I wrote a couple of sets of variations for piano as composition assignments in high school, the first on "Ode to Joy" (how original!), when I wasn't much older than the composer/performer who kicked off this thread, and the second a theme of my own, which I recently discovered has some vague resemblance to that in the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata (which is interesting, because I don't remember learning about that piece until later). I don't have recordings of either of those bits of juvenilia and the world is probably better off for that. Forget entirely barren displays of vague virtuosity; more like entirely barren displays of a unique ability to trip over one's own fingers. Graham87 (talk) 07:07, 13 July 2026 (UTC)